


we live through scars this time

by fullmetallizard



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Scars, Teen for Ed's potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetallizard/pseuds/fullmetallizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed tells Winry about his scars from Baschool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we live through scars this time

**Author's Note:**

> I WISH I owned FMA but alas...

“Hey, come here,” Winry said from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Ed was across the room rifling through the closet for a shirt to put on. He turned when she spoke.

“What?” He said, walking over, a white button down slung over his arm.

“I know about most of your scars,” she said. She traced the ones left over from automail surgery, ones she felt responsible for. (Ed disagreed. “These are the scars I got when you gave me my life back,” he’d told her shortly before their wedding.)

She moved her hand from his shoulder to smooth it over the large one on his stomach. There was a matching one on his back. “But I don’t know this one.” She’d been meaning to ask in the few months they’d been married. “What happened?” She looked up from the angry pink skin to his eyes.

They were surprisingly sad, golden and stormy. A flicker of fear overshadowed her curiosity. “What?” She asked. She ran her thumb along the scar and Ed shivered a little, the shirt he’d taken from the closet slipping to the ground.

He stepped a little closer, putting one hand on her side and the other on her hip. “Win,” he sighed.

“What’s wrong, Ed? Tell me.”

He furrowed his brow and was silent for a few moments. She knew this face. He was searching for the right way to break bad news. “It happened in Baschool,” he said.

“Baschool?”

“Once we’d separated…Kimblee caused an explosion. The building we were in collapsed.”

“Okay,” she said, unable to shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.

“There was…when he…okay,” he took a deep breath. “I got impaled. By a metal beam.”

She blinked. “How did you survive that?”

“See,” he said. “That’s the shitty part. I had to seal it and I used alchemy to do it. Heinkel pulled the beam out and I sealed it. I spent a good chunk of time with a doctor after that though.”

“ _Sealed_ it? I thought you used metals and earth in your alchemy. How did you do that?”

“I used…I used my life force like a Philosopher’s stone.”

She took that in. She could feel herself switching from fear to her defense emotion- anger. “You did _what_ , Edward Elric?”

He said nothing and she watched as he studied her face.

“What does that mean? Why are you acting like this?”

“Using my life force…it probably means I shaved a few years off my life. I have no way of knowing how many though,” he said it softly but the words were loud and harsh in her ears.

“Why would you do something so stupid?!” She demanded. She couldn’t help but wince at the shrillness of her voice.  

“It was the only thing I _could_ do. It was the only way I could have lived, Win.” This was different. They’d had more screaming matches than probably any other newlywed couple had before in the history of Amestris; Winry yelling usually had Ed screaming back. But Ed was calm.

“But…no,” she said. Tears blurred her vision as the anger left as quickly as it had come. “That…that’s terrifying, Ed.”

“Hey,” he soothed, wiping a tear away with his thumb. “I told myself I wouldn’t let you cry over that.”

“How could I not cry, idiot? You just told me you took years off your life. _Years_. And you don’t have a clue how many. How am I supposed to react?”

He lowered his forehead so it rested against hers. She tried to look at him to get an idea of his emotions but his eyes were closed. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“So you just didn’t?” She asked. Her chest ached.

“I was going to tell you eventually. Shit, I haven’t even told Al yet. I tell myself I’m going to every time he visits from Xing but I always chicken out.”

She thought of the engraving in his pocket watch, the one kept in the top drawer of their dresser. Al didn’t know what it said. She’d thought about how she cried about that too.

“Don’t cry,” he said, pulling her to her feet. She didn’t move her hand from his belly.

She laid her cheek on his warm chest. He smelled like soap and himself. It helped ground her. He put a hand on her head, as he so often did and she cried a little while longer.

“I know what will help,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

“What could possibly help?”

“Dance with me,” he said.

It was so absurd that a laugh bubbled out her before she could stop it. “You’re an awful dancer,” she said.

“How rude of you to say,” he said. She smiled at the light, teasing tone of his voice. “General Bastard spent _days_ teaching me how to waltz and he wouldn’t appreciate you saying that.”

He adjusted them so they were in the position to dance. He hummed and tried his best to lead. Winry remembered being surprised when she found out Ed could carry a tune pretty well. She loved that about him. She loved that he sang in the shower. She loved that she knew with absolute certainty that he loved her, even when they were both red from yelling at each other.

“Ow, Ed!” She laughed as his automail foot stomped down on her bare one.

“That was you. You did it wrong.”

“Did not!”

They laughed and danced until he spun her onto the bed. He lay beside her and kissed her hair once she’d curled up against him. “Feel any better?” He asked.

She had to admit that she did. “I’m still scared though. What if…what if you just drop dead in front of me one day?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he said. “Winry,” he turned in the bed to face her. “All of our days are numbered. Any day you could get hit by a train or fall and break your neck.”

“God, don’t be so cheerful,” she deadpanned.

“Listen. Any of us could die at any time. But what matters is right now. What matters is that you’re my wife and I love you and we’ll be fine no matter what.”

She nestled her head back down onto his chest. “But I won’t be fine without you.”

“We’ll get to grow old together. I promise.”

She knew it was a promise he couldn’t truly make. But it comforted her nonetheless. “I love you, dummy,” she said.

He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” he said. “You too, moron.”   

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a sketch by fennethianell.tumblr.com that tickled my fancy. If you don't know about her art seriously go check it out. Insane amount of talent!!!  
> Comments are always appreciated.


End file.
